Gemitaiz has created a “band” album

With “Elsewhere”, Gemitaiz signs a personal and at the same time collective work: a record “from band”, one of the best of his careerwhich puts his world, his visions, his story at the center, but in one dimension wider and more shared. The writing and the music remain the underlying theme of an album played and layered, where rap, jazz, fragments of reggae, rock-blues, gospel and choirs find space, a natural tribute to black musicall intertwined with a nice taste for melody and some sensual atmospheres in the more love songs. “Elsewhere”, which arrives three years after “Eclissi”, it is the natural evolution of the Roman artist’s path: the elements scattered over the years they return compact, mature, collected in a single form. And it will be live, with a band, one hundred percent, that this project will find its fullest, most definitive dimension.

In the more purely instrumental part, which reaches the top in pieces like “Come on you”in which they stand out Rodrigo D’Erasmo, Carmine Iuvone and Riccardo Cardelliwe manage to give an almost cinematic breath to the sound of the album in which even the percussive and drum moments by Fabio Rondanini or those of bass by Daniele Dezi, or Orang3, which together with Frenetik represents a certainty also on the production front. Precisely these oscillate between novelty and roots, some were signed by Gem himself, others have the stamp of historical collaborators such as Mace, “Flowman” and “Think” they are of the highest leveland are capable of giving continuity and impetus to its evolution. Even the featuring (the French singer Mathilde Fernandez, Salmo, Neffa and Ele A, Coez, Venerus and MadMan, Meg, Joshua and Danno) are all inserted appropriately: they do not respond to industrial or streaming logic, but really serve the narrative. A concrete example: Meg in “The Night” it literally gives voice to the night and becomes its atmosphere and substance.

In “Elsewhere” there is a desire for elsewhere: Gemitaiz speaks of another world because what he sees today is burning, tired, devoid of love, empathy and, on a musical level, suffocated by the industry. But this momentum is not an escape: it is a mental space in which to resist, hope, continue to impact reality. An alternative space. He says it already in the opening of the album, he himself who, precisely, has never been afraid to expose himself: “You know, I don’t remember seeing you in the square or on a stage when the sea is rough”. The theme of “representing” is also central: a question that contemporary rap often leaves out and which becomes essential here. Gemitaiz asks himself who he is making music for and in the title track he answers clearly: “I do it for you who feel different and heal those deep cutsIn “Up in the Air” he opens up about the personal, “I saw my father, his illness“, and still chooses to be on the side of those who “he never had a choice“. He represents those who are on the margins, those who carry their own wounds, those who live outside the spotlight. In “Come on you” reality breaks down the door, but, when good and evil seem to merge, we must make an effort to carry out an exercise of identification, running away from easy judgements.

Among the songs that testify to his authorial growth is “Thinks”one of the most intense episodes of the album: an invitation to read one’s life within a broader horizon. When it seems like everything is going wrong, Gemitaiz remember that there are those who never have a good “round”, those who receive nothing from existence. It is not a do-gooder speech, but an exercise in clarity: accepting reality for what it is, without victimization or self-pity. “Brother & Sister”in this sense, is a hymn of hope in which even just one song, in the darkest times, “can keep us standing”. In the final piece, “Apathy”, through the sample of “I’m Going to Rise” by Annie & The Caldwells, the entire struggle between the artist and the roughness of reality is concentrated. Overcoming apathy, the thought that nothing can be done, that we cannot have an impact on today, is a central point: Gemitaiz, through gritted teethaware of having to pay a price, rejects this idea and says clearly that we must not let ourselves be brought down. At the end he states: “Sooner or later, I shine“. A manifesto. The album, despite being very nocturnal, reveals a warm light, which reminds us of how, sooner or later, we can all save ourselves, becoming even maybe just for a day “heroes” of our daily life, as David Bowie would have said, through love and improvement.